It’s hard to come up with a term I can use to indicate “people I know in a non-online-only sort of way” that doesn’t accidentally communicate “non-online is real and online is not.” “In real life” is a common shorthand, but…YOU are real-life! HERE is real-life! We are all real, and alive, and this is real life! I need a term that communicates NOT here, and instead more like…the people we know away from here, in the space where we bring our kids to the same schools, and where we get together in coffee shops and for lunch, and where we see each other in the grocery store. So I would say “local people”—except I’m also including in this category people I know who don’t actually live in my same town, such as old high school and college friends, and friends we knew before we moved to this state, and friends who used to live here but moved away, and so on—some of whom I now interact with only online, so how to differentiate them from people I only know because of online? We are not going to say “in meat space” *shudder* but then what DO we say? I think this is one of those topics, like “What do we call the first decade, if we’re apparently not cool enough to pull off saying The Aughts?,” that comes up again and again because there just is no good solution.
Well. Among those people, those people I know separate from this cherished online community, I don’t know any whose college students are not going to college if in-person college is an option. (That is, I know people whose kids are attending remotely because the college has gone all-remote, but I don’t know anyone who had the option of in-person or remote and chose remote.) And I don’t know any who are choosing the remote option for their school-age children, either, if a hybrid/in-person option is available. And all the nurses at Edward’s Remicade appointment are sending their children back in-person to college and/or K-12 schools and/or pre-K/daycare.
I am feeling lonely in our pandemic choices.
I am not feeling lonely overall. There are six other people in this house with me: I am back to the days of hiding in the bathroom, locking my bedroom door, asking people to please please for the love of god stop talking to me every ten seconds, etc. Also, I have access to friends through emails, texting, IM/DM, Zoom/Hangouts, and (theoretically) phone calls, which makes us so much luckier than, say, early settlers. But I am feeling lonely in that I don’t know other families who have chosen remote-learning when they could have chosen in-person.
It could be that I have lost my mind. It really could! People who have lost their minds generally THINK they have NOT lost their minds! People who have fully crossed into tin-foil-hat category don’t think, as far as I can tell, “Oh, how funny, apparently I am now a person who has crossed the boundaries of the rational, and am now thinking irrationally!” It could very well be that other people are right, and I am wrong, and I fully concede that point! I fully concede it! Not only do I concede it, I HOPE FOR IT TO BE THE CASE! Because if I am right, THAT IS THE BAD OPTION.
Because let me tell you what I think is going to happen (not what I’m SURE will happen or KNOW will happen or CONFIDENTLY PREDICT will happen, just what I THINK), considering more than 170,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the U.S. so far, and the rest of the world pities us and is appalled at our behavior, and our country is still not doing anything in particular about any of that. I think all the college kids will be coming back home, after thoroughly mixing with their peers from other parts of the country/world. I think all the work and expense K-12 schools have put into figuring out how to do in-person learning (the scheduling! the cleaning! the equipment! the policies!) will be wasted after a few weeks, maybe less or more in some cases, and that soon they will all be remote ANYWAY, and without having used all this time to figure out how to do remote better, and without anyone having found any sort of creative solution to address the fact that many working parents rely on schools for childcare so that they can work.
Here are the plans, as they look to me: We are deliberately throwing a nationwide Covid-19 party. Every household that can spare a representative, perhaps a young child who doesn’t have a job, should send that representative to a daily location where they can spend a large chunk of hours breathing the same air as representatives from other households in the local area. If the household representative is an older child who can be away from home longer, they should be sent to share air on a more macro level, living in groups of thousands with representatives collected from other towns and other states and even other countries, and then they can be sent back in a few months to their own communities. The goal is to make sure the virus is spread as thoroughly as possible across our households, communities, and country.
At this point there may be those who feel inclined to tell me why this is the wrong way to see things, either to defend an alternate choice or in an attempt to console me / talk me down; but I hope you will understand when I say pre-emptively that I have been WIDELY and THOROUGHLY exposed to alternate and potentially-comforting points of view on this topic, to the extent that I have just said I am literally questioning my own sanity. And I have said I know of NO ONE in my non-online life who is voluntarily keeping their students at home, NO ONE, so in fact ALL I am hearing is alternate/disagreeing views. And this makes me feel as if I am alone in my own views, and that is the point of this post, and so hearing that YET ANOTHER PERSON doesn’t share my views is not…THERAPEUTIC or USEFUL here. Only time can help: either I will find to my great relief that I am completely wrong, or else I won’t.
What I HAVE found useful/therapeutic is access to the online community. The broader scope of online interaction lets me see I am not actually alone, and there are MANY other families choosing the remote option, or tentatively signing up for in-person but continuing to consider the option of switching to remote before school begins. I am not sure what I would be doing/feeling without that connection. It reminds me of how so many people, including me, found online communities when they were feeling isolated with newborns and young children.
My granddaughter is doing remote and there is also a hybrid option at her school. Two other families I know from the bus stop have also chosen remote.
I use the term “virtual” frinds for those i know ONLY online.
Perhaps we can take a lead from thw school debate and use the virtual / in-person/hybrid nomenclature for friends relationship?
Perhaps you could call those friends “nonline” ??
I do not have children of school age any more, but I can assure you they would NOT be going back to in-person school. I do not buy the “they will fall behind” argument and, while it’s true that there are children who will suffer by not being in an in-person setting, there is always a percentage of students who do not thrive in whatever model is currently the status quo.
I am in favor of students with IEPs and special needs getting more in-person supports and I also am in favor of PAYING one parent to stay home and help the remote learners learn. I realize there is no political will for that, but it’s my solution. And (god I hope) in a year we will be back to near-normal and no one will have fallen SO FAR BEHIND that they will never catch up.
I really like the “fall behind what?” Challenge to the fall behind argument. Schooling the way we structure it is young. So forever before that, we didn’t have it and we managed.
You can make the argument that the School to prepare for industrialized jobs model we currently have isn’t super prepping us for anything. And the resilience and ingenuity gained by being innovative, flexible, and adaptable in this current moment is more valuable than sitting at a desk, in a room, absorbing things other people think you need to know to pass a test, while having any and all decisions made for you – what you read, learn, study. When you eat, when you talk, when you use the bathroom….
There’s a college professor on Twitter named Stan Yoshinobu who might be a helpful addition to your online community right now. He is very vocal about how doomed bringing students to campus is, AND how preferable it is to be planning for online instruction is from the get go rather than switching later on. He’s also in math, which I think might be particularly relevant for Rob & William? I can also say a professor I work with was saying the other day that he’s discovered he teaches his computers classes better online compared to leaning over people’s shoulders and squinting at their screens. So if that is also particularly relevant to Rob and William, I would not assume they’re being shortchanged by taking classes remotely. Maybe they are learning important professional skills about collaborating with colleagues who work at different locations.
Knowing this sacrifice will result in affected students presents a very real challenge. I’d like to dedicate free weekend tutoring sessions for kids in my community. This likely will be a hybrid of childcare/learning, but so be it. I hope I can make a difference.
That’s Zoom childcare /learning
I am NOT sending my kids back in person. My 10 year old will without a doubt be staying home the entire school year. I’ve made the choice to homeschool her on my own while working…….I’m convinced I’ve lost my mind. My 13 year old is doing “distance learning” but when California suddenly decides we meet the threshold to go back I will probably opt out. The 3 year old is most definitely not going to pre-school!
I also feel quite alone as I’m the only one in my group of “mom friends” making these choices. I guess we will see how the experiment plays out.
I don’t comment much but I thoroughly enjoy your writing!❤️
California in da house!
I live in N CA and cases in our rural county (Mendocino) cases are surging, with 5 deaths last week alone!
My boys, age 8 and 11, attend a small private Catholic school. Our leadership is very good at managing parent expectations, they developed a Plan A, B, and C to address the various options.
I chose the “all remote learning” option, about 2/3 of my sons’ cohorts selected in-person.
One day before the scheduled opening our county was added to the state watch list, preventing our school from offering in-person classes.
Whew! What a relief. My primary concern with selecting remote-only was that the in-person duties would soak up the teachers’ energy and effort, and the online kids would be an afterthought. Plus, obviously, the risk of community spread in the school.
I am 100 percent supporting the remote learning model. My perspective is that this will be the new reality for the next year, probably longer.
In short: Swistle, you are not alone!
Love your writing, thank you for creating this community!
I, in Massachusetts, concur with you. I do know quite a few people/families in my community who were not sending their children back before that decision was taken away (we are all remote at this time).
We are communally doing that thing where we are ignoring all evidence to the contrary and just blithely planning away for the thing we want, instead of the thing we HAVE. How much time, expense, planning power have we squandered on rube goldberg level plans to accomplish the thing we want? There are dominoes and those marble coaster things and they hit fans and lifts and cross water hazards and are as convoluted as they can possibly be and everyone will have to go remote (which hasn’t received nearly the same level of scrutiny, and dedication) and do a crappy job of it at some point. All the whole having lost teachers and students and maybe administrators during the process (to voluntary or involuntary causes like – you don’t pay me enough, your solutions fail to take into account that I am a teacher AND a parent – or caregiver, to I can no longer teach/learn because I am dead)
Meanwhile, we are still hemming and hawing and not providing any kind of a safety net/economic anything. So the communities are collapsing and AHHHHHHHH
If you’re nuts, I am too. And I know a few of us.
How do we never learn?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
You are right—it’s like we, collectively, asked ourselves “What do we WANT for the fall?” Instead of “What do we NEED to do for the fall?” I agree that education is a need, but it’s beat out by health and safety.
I don’t say this in a confrontational or argumentative way, but I think the decision making about the fall is more than “what do we want?” I don’t want to send my kid to school. I have to because I have to work and we can’t afford to pay for full time care (virtual learning here is synchronous so we would need someone willing to supervise learning not just a daycare). Our school district has gone to great lengths to have options for families like mine with as many precautions as possible. I just… felt like I needed to mention that maybe some of what is happening now is more, “given these crap circumstances, what can the options be?”
Elizabeth seem to fall into the “could be covered by economic safety net” right? Like you are choosing the least bad option because we aren’t actually planning to safely do this with any sort of actual goal of being able to safely do this. If we wanted to (we, collective, everyone, the country, etc, New Zealand) we COULD absolutely. We just don’t. We would rather put the burden on individuals instead of taking a holistic approach to the whole thing. But, if you didn’t have to work or if there was a way to get you affordable full-time care, or if everyone was just given a lump sum to help them and allow for them to make better decisions, not the least bad decision, would it change your plan?
My district was going hybrid…for about a week. And then we tipped ourselves right into the DANGER category (so, without anyone in school, our instance of new cases put us right over the edge) and that wasn’t an option. But we wasted ALL THIS TIME planning for hybrid – sending out virtual surveys to parents asking if they need internet access. Because ASKING VIA THE INTERNET IF YOU NEED INTERNET definitely gives reliable results. 30% didn’t respond at all, for whatever reason…so you’re 80% say “no thanks, we have internet covered” isn’t a real number – and hybrid ain’t happening. A quick look down the road in any preceding month where any kind of excuse (high school graduation they had to have, 4th of July, Memorial Day) caused a significant uptick in cases could have shown that even if we managed to hold out until the start of school, the start of school was going to tip us right over almost immediately. But we chose to ignore all of that and make a decision that had to immediately be reversed.
And neither of these things helps you out at all, still. You’re still in the stuck boat. We still haven’t collectively addressed – what do we do with these children? and their parents that cannot go without an income and also cannot work and simultaneously care for their children? And that sucks. And I hope everyone remains healthy.
I guess in theory it could be covered by some of kind of governmental bailout for families but that’s just not the world we live in. We have the government we have and so, given this particular set of circumstances, school administrators are doing their best to provide an in-person learning choice (even though it is not an ideal choice) and a virtual learning choice (even though it is not an ideal choice). It’s not want anyone wants, but it is what we have.
^ YES to this. I am in a state that has handled (and continues to handle) this disastrously poorly, but I feel decent about our local leadership and the choices they are making, particularly around schools and safety protocol. While my job is now 100% work from home, I have young kids and have been trying to balance caring for them with working since March…and I don’t even have words to describe how bad it has been, but BAD.
We know several families here who are choosing 100% online for various reasons. All these families I would note already had a parent who was a stay at home parent.
I don’t feel great about sending my kids to school, and would likely be doing something different if my work situation was different, but this is the choice I have. As my kids are able to be in person school, I am furiously trying to do extra work and get ahead for when they are inevitably out of school again. It stinks.
Also in Massachusetts and our district is still on the hybrid option—I have five kids and one is going fully remote while the other four are going homeschool with yours truly at the helm (lectern?). I’ve been 90% sure this would be our path since May, which has blessedly exempted me from a lot of caring about what other locals are doing—although I am distraught at the idea that friends are choosing hybrid because the cognitive dissonance compels them: “How could our wonderful school district be willing to risk our community’s health? Schools must be safe!” when the evidence of safety is either not there or pointing to a different conclusion. I also know I’m in a rare sweet spot of being an at-home parent with a teaching degree, so I’m able to use safety as my sole factor in making this decision; most others are obviously dealing with many more variables and opportunity costs. Swistle, I agree with your predictions although, like you, I hope I’m wrong!
I am also an at-home parent with a teaching degree. I am struggling with the just homeschool already vs. go with the remote option. The solution I have settled on is: if I hate the remote option, we will homeschool. Because I have the luxury of making that decision.
I am in the middle of “Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?” about the father of ecomonic theory never once officially taking unpaid labor into account either despite or because HIS MOTHER LIVED WITH HIM HIS WHOLE LIFE!!!!! And did the domestic chores. So he could come up with an economic theory that totally neglected the fact that the whole blooming house of cards is based upon someone willing to do the domestic chores FOR ZERO PAY (or whom we do not pay – because he wrote it when slavery was the thing). And without those people, it all comes crashing down.
This whole thing is like that. The whole world is pretending that every household is made up of people like us: at home parents with teaching credentials (while never actually giving us credit for any of it) and simultaneously pretending that people like Ali and Elizabeth don’t exist. Because if that were the case, this whole thing would be the non-issue we pretend it is. We could easily flip flop learning models – the at-home parents are there! they’ve got it! they can also see to anyone who becomes ill! And then the productive (cash money earning) parent can go on with their business uninterrupted. Perfect!
And the productive parent is never the teacher they are sending into classrooms, while their children? Stay home? Watch themselves? Accompany them? IDK. There’s an extra at-home parent for teachers, they’re made that way.
The whole thing is such a mess.
All I can really say to you is that I think you are being entirely sensible and not crazy at all. My kids’ district is big and full of old, crowded buildings to the point that the superintendent said that we would be doing distance learning for the foreseeable future. There was no safe way to do in-person learning. I will also tell you that even if we had been given a choice we would have opted for distance learning anyway.
I think you are right on all your points. Every one. Sorry you feel so alone in your local community.
I feel the same way! Were also staying home and have not expanded our circle. I dont have school aged kids but were not sending my toddler anywhere now (lucky to have the option, i know!) But its hard to see the world moving on, even though we know schools and colleges will be closing down (hello UNC).
I’m in Memphis (so TN, but arguably the bluest city in the state), and our best friends are the only “in-person” friends not sending their kids to school. Having this online community has been a lifesaver, and I am sending a virtual, socially-distant solidarity fist bump.
I also have an immuno-compromised kid (ulcerative colitis), and I definitely think that fact has caused much more fretting than the average parent. I’m not sure what messaging you got from E’s GI doc, but ours was Very Stern And Serious about precautionary measures and what to do in the event of possible exposure, as if I was not already sufficiently scared straight. (And I totally understand that not all people are as concerned or knowledgeable but sometimes I really wish I could wear a sign that says “Hey, hi, hello, I promise we are taking all of this seriously please don’t go scorched earth on us!”
I have to admit, I do sometimes refer to people I only know through their blogs and mine, as my “imaginary friends,” partly because it gets my kids’ goats. “They’re not imaginary!” they will say. And I know that, but in my mind I put the stress on the “friends” part.
My kids are both online with no choice. I’m not sure how North would have handled in-person school right now, what with the non-stop seizures they’re having. We’re not even sure how they’re going to handle remote school, though we’re in the process of trying to get accommodations. School starts a week from tomorrow.
What I’m finding is the “go back!” people are really vocal and really argumentative. It’s exhausting. I’ve also seen a few rallies to support in person – one at the MA state house- and it’s not like there’s a good way to do that if you’re not going out much. So the visibility is skewed. I think many many people are choosing to stay home, but also choosing not to talk about it much online, especially on Facebook.
I don’t think you have traveled to tin foil hat category, based on my experience and the news of UNC, Notre Dame, and many other colleges and universities including the university that I work at.
If it makes you feel less crazy we are keeping our kids (5th and 2nd graders) on the virtual options. Even if everything goes perfectly, I was thinking about what happens when my kid gets a cold if they are going to school? Would we need to keep them home for 2 weeks, get them a COVID test in a doctors office? Neither sounds good. Also my partner and I asked ourselves if we would be happy to be in a crowded building with 10 other people in the same room as us for 8 hours a day? The answer was a definite NO so why would we send our kids?
The answer here would be yes, a child with a cold would have symptoms that overlap with Covid-19 and thus not be allowed back until a negative test result proves they can go back. If a child in a class tests positive that entire class is isolating for 2 weeks or until the individuals produce a negative test result – BUT since it takes about 5 days after exposure to get to a reasonable viral count, they shouldn’t be tested until 5 days after being exposed, so with a 24-48 hour test turnaround, all kids are out for at least a week, even the ones that get tested and get negative results.
I’ve signed up my (going into 6th grade) son for the all-online option with our school district. The middle school has been really good about communication and emailed out lists (first name, last initial only) of which of his grade level is in each of the hybrid groups and it was dismaying to see the lengths of the lists.
They did sort everyone district -wide, instead of just by class, in order to ensure siblings even at different schools are on the same schedules and asked parents to let them know about scheduling needs. I’ve been wondering though if all that effort wouldn’t have been better spent on plans for remote learning.
Amen to all of this. I feel sometimes like I live in another universe. We have a local college that even though they have remote classes, they already have covid clusters. Because, obv, a lot of it stems fromt dorms and the off-campus activities. So I agree that all of this is a huge gamble. I also realize that it is a no-win scenario for most parents. Our school offered remote learning as an option, and standard school guidelines kept changing. At first, they weren’t requiring masks. Thankfully, they changed that (Ohio finally put a mask mandate in place which kind of forced the issue). And the week we had to decide virtual or not, the district decided to go hybrid–half of the kids go Monday and Tuesday, the other half are Thursday and Friday. We start our virtual classes tomorrow which will be interesting.
Apparently, 25-30 percent of the district chose that as the option! However, I only personally know a few families who chose it. Instead, my social media is full of everyone living their normal lives. :(
I could have sworn I read it here, but: “brick-and-mortar friends.”
I do not have children yet and so do not have to make any choices about schooling, but I truly feel like I’m losing my mind when I hear people talk about the pandemic/quarantine/staying at home in the past tense — fortunately something I mostly observe online and not much among my brick-and-mortar people.
I am almost teary with thanks for reading this. I’m feeling so sad and alone. Everyone in my town is all IN-PERSON SCHOOL, WOOHOO! Meanwhile I’m like “…my kids and I will be locked in this house trying not to murder each other, sob.”
It was somewhat consoling to think that if in-person went well, we, too, could go in-person at some point. If it doesn’t, everyone will be home just like us. But. We got teacher assignments and the virtual students don’t even have teachers who are currently classroom teachers. We have administrators/support staff assigned to us. Who probably still have to do their other job? Maybe they’ll be much better at virtual teaching! Maybe they’re ready for JUST THIS and it will be even better than a current classroom teacher adapting on the fly! Maybe it won’t. And if everyone ends up at home, all those other kids still have classroom teachers and we still have administrators who might be splitting their time. There’s no way to know if we’ll end up being better off or worse off, but it feels bad to be specifically not in the same boat.
We chose a hybrid option— for two reasons: the most important of which is that my twins who are seniors could not get every class they needed for their potential college choices online. Well one of them could, but she’s the one who most has the sense of fomo.
My husband who had some control over how his classes are delivered is also doing a hybrid but has had many students prefer online only (so he’s making one section of his in person class meetings a remote class meeting).
I’m honestly scared. I’m hoping that your thinking about things shutting down will happen, but I have my doubts and that scares me more.
I don’t have any kids so I can’t speak to that part, but I DO have a lot of friends that are educators. The online/in-person/hybrid policies are different in EVERY school district but to a person none of these hard working folks wants to step foot in physical building with children foor 8+ hours a day. They all want to educate but NONE of them wants to GET SICK, INFECT SOMEONE ELSE/POTENTIALLY DIE.
Also, from another viewpoint, I live in a big city, with lots of colleges – I’ve seen the amount of college age folks shoot up in the last few weeks and the # of them NOT wearing a mask, or social distancing is alarming. I understand the economics behind the colleges re-opening but STILL. We’ve suffered alot, and have worked really hard to get our #’s down. You know that’s going to change because PEOPLE.
When the school choices were announced here, around 25% initially said they would choose online only-that number has since risen to around 50%. In our circle, it’s about half going each way, and I’m not noticing too much scorn for either choice. Probably because I think it’s setting in that in-person efforts are likely to be futile in the vast majority of cases. Which is truly terrible when you consider the time and effort spent.
I know so many people who feel lonely or even insecure in their choices (one friend is questioning her decision not to let her daughter try out for volleyball-another is questioning her decision to quit her job to stay home with younger kids). I’m mostly angry that we even HAVE to feel lonely in our choices, because WE HAVE NO LEADERSHIP making ANY NATIONAL DECISIONS OF ANY KIND.
Preach.
You always write what I need to hear. And same here, I only know one person at our personal school that is attending online. (There are others, my children are in full online classes, we started on Thursday, but only one that I know personally.)
I say non-internet friends, to imply that the non-internet ones are the ones that aren’t the standard.
IMO, you’re completely right. We are living in a dystopian YA novel.
Our local public schools are doing remote-only with a plan to start hybrid classes in Oct, should circumstances allow it, with an option to go full remote — only my 15yo begged me not to sign up for that. So I haven’t, and I’m conflicted, because my instincts say even hybrid’s not enough to keep kids safe, and that October isn’t enough time. Meanwhile, my eldest is heading off to college and will be living on campus, because he’s got a class with an in-person requirement (all the others are fully remote). He’s not willing to consider staying home with us although we live about 40 miles away from school. My only hope is that he’ll be able to get a room without a roommate & that he’ll be vigilant about wearing a mask and avoiding situations where he could get ill. I’m so stressed out that I can never relax. I can’t even remember what it feels like not to have my shoulders up next to my ears or my spine not wrapped in knots.
We don’t have kids of our own, so I can’t express solidarity about choosing remote.
As to your point about college students returning to families as virus vectors….I feel that one all too acutely. Both the college where my husband teaches and the big R1 where I work have brought students to campus for the fall; both have a proportion of online classes but some in person.
Both colleges have been keen on the idea to get the students back home and off campus by Thanksgiving, so they don’t come back to campus after Thanksgiving with covid. Of course, this reflects a (false) mentality that a campus is somehow a closed system – and administrators’ chief concern is keeping the virus away from campus as much as possible and not so much with sending the virus back with students to their families/communities.
The college campus is not a closed system. Husband’s college is very much a suitcase kind of school, where the students tend to be from places in say a two-hour driving radius. The very first weekend, one of his students went home to hang with her high school bestie who turned out to be an asymptomatic covid carrier. Bam, student is quarantining for two weeks and taking his class via a Zoom feed from a quarantine dorm room.
(the economics of why many colleges chose to reopen for some degree of residential undergraduate life are complicated; see this Nature article for a decent explanation: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02419-w).
Maybe it would make you feel better to hear that Chicago public schools are all remote? It was a little odd to see one of my co-workers happily sharing pics of her son’s first day of Kindergarten in the suburbs with in person school.
I have a different problem, I’m dreading winter when all of the fun outdoor things we have been doing will stop. No more parks, visiting friends in their back yard, and so on.
I do know one family choosing remote over F2F for their upper-elementary-aged daughters and the parents are…. an infectious disease epidemiologist and a pharmacist who works in a hospital. That REALLY makes me second-guess sending my kids F2F. However, their reasons are (1) that they figure that the remote option will at least be stable for the whole school year (like you and I, they predict that schools will close again at some point) and (2) one of the daughters has a condition with symptoms that will resemble covid and mean they have to keep her home regularly anyway.
I am a secondary school teacher and I am probably choosing F2F for my three, in Gr.4, 6, & 8, mainly because WHEN schools close again I think that they will really benefit from really knowing their teachers and classmates for remote learning. This is especially true for my youngest.
FWIW, in your shoes, with an immune-compromised household member, I would choose remote in a heart-beat.
Yeah, one of the reasons I wanted in person was so that my kids could at least meet their teachers before they probably shut down again. My youngest, now 4th grade, didn’t do well with distance learning and that was with a teacher he knew and liked and who knew him. Not sure how it’s meant to go well with a new teacher who doesn’t know him and he doesn’t know at all either.
The people I know who work for the school board are choosing remote. I found that very telling.
If I lived in the States, I would be choosing remote.
I voted for online-only with our middle/high school and it won. I am PLEASED. They’ve committed to online-only through the 1st trimester (mid-Oct) which I think is PERFECT for us to wait out this in-person/hybrid thing other schools are doing and then in mid-Oct when we’re ALL doing remote learning, I will be pleased and SMUG. (Not pleased and smug about people who have spread/acquired covid, of course.)
I watch people I work with (MEDICAL PEOPLE) carrying on with life like everything is normal and I have the same feeling of “Am I INSANE now??” but I don’t think I am (of course) and we’ll keep limiting who we interact with and wearing masks when we DO go places and taking this FREAKING PANDEMIC seriously, I guess. SHEESH. I AM GETTING ANGRY.
I have to admit that I know a nurse who is very nice but kind of an airhead. She has bought tickets to a CRUISE this upcoming February and is all “crossing my fingers for a vaccine by then!” and I’m just like WHAT IS SHE THINKING?!? And she is technically A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL!
People are flabbergasting.
Just read this article and though quite pertinent to this thread:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/upshot/coronavirus-home-school-parents.html?searchResultPosition=1
You’re not alone. Our school district is online-only right now, but we would have chosen remote if there had been a choice. And if in-person was the only option, we would have chosen to homeschool. (And I NEVER thought I would ever choose homeschooling, because we have great public schools here.)
Daycares are open, but we have chosen to keep our toddler home. My husband and I are both working remotely and have been since March. It’s not easy to have all of us home all day every day. It’s not fun. I am not cherishing this extra time with my children because I know they would be better served by in-person classrooms in a non-pandemic world. But here we are, and I’m always going to put the health and safety of my family first. There are risks I’m not willing to take.
In the last few weeks we have started to open our bubble a little bit – for example, I allowed my 5yo into a store for the first time since March so she could pick out her own school supplies. We are also beginning to go to playgrounds again, but only if no other kids are playing on them and we wash/sanitize right after.
Anyway. You’re not alone. It’s hard and you’re making the safest choice.
FWIW, I agree with you.
I said just the other day – it’s like we’re having a giant chicken pox party for kids, only with everybody and with something that can kill you.
Comment 2:
Our county (CA Bay Area) Is currently on the governor’s watch list and schools are unable to open in-person. So I’m watching this develop across the country with wide eyes. It shocks me that so many are going back to in-person. But that’s easy from my “they took the decision away from me” position.
Of course our county did relax some other rules that may cause an increase in cases. Or an attitude that school should re-open. People have definitely stopped being as vigilant.
I am also in California (southern) and we are “almost off” the watch list in our county, even though we already started school online-only, and I am watching the planned “phased reopening” with total disbelief. If you start sending kids back to school AND you start reopening businesses because cases are going down (even though “down” does not actually seem to mean “low”), how are we not going to have massive increases in a month or so? Like, we reopened once already, and that was with kids OUT of school, and it was a disaster. It makes no sense, but my district seems super eager to resume in-person school, so here we go.
I agree with you and think you are making good choices for your family. We are also being more cautious than most, but that seems like the smartest thing to do for those who can!
We ended up going with the on-campus option for NYU because they had been very intentional about it, Fordon’s currently quarantined on campus. Food has been a serious issue, to the point of gaining international attention. If he were still in high school, we would have gone with a remote-only option (if there had been any other option).
This may or may not be helpful, but based on the fraction of your life I can see from this post I would be doing the exact same thing in your situation ❤️
Right now, we are planning to send our kids (ages 6 and 8) F2F for two days a week, but off the top of my head, I can think of at least five families in our area who are choosing to keep their kids home, either through their district’s virtual option or homeschooling. It seems totally reasonable (not tinfoil hat at all), and it’s something we carefully considered. The reason we’re not keeping our kids home is because our school district’s virtual option is definitely not workable for our family, and I am so concerned that our school district will collapse financially if too many students choose homeschooling or private schools (which people are choosing so they can avoid the masking requirement at public schools). So many families and kids absolutely depend on public schooling. Also, the numbers in our area are so so so much better than they were in the spring. That being said, it’s not a decision that I feel particularly good about, just what feels like it’s maybe slightly better than the rest of a bunch of really bad options. We might still pull our kids out if it’s not working, or if the numbers here change, or if we don’t think the district is following through on their planned precautions.
Oh, also our district is starting completely online for 8th-12th grade (hybrid for 6th and 7th because the students will stay in the same classroom and not have passing time). I am really hoping that those grades stay online.
I know one college student that chose online only instead of in person. I know another college freshman that took a gap year.
We chose distance learning even though hybrid was offered (the county has now moved to all distance learning). It seems roughly 55% of our county chose hybrid.
Colleges are closing to in person, at least one per day. ECU just sent everyone home. I have seen pics from my son of large dorm parties INSIDE at Va Tech. I have seen the large freshman outdoor party at penn state. I saw with my own eyes upperclassmen parties off campus at penn state. I see on snapchat maps large parties at JMU, Radford and VA tech and NC State.
I live in a state with a lot of people who don’t want to wear masks in order to protect the vulnerable among us because “freedom” and who are very vocal about wanting schools to open (without masks, they demand), and so I know several people who are homeschooling or doing online-only school this year. It is true, however, they either have a stay-at-home parent situation or they are retired grandparents taking on the schooling responsibility for educating their grandchildren.
My daughter is a college student who did go back to school this fall (after being home from spring break through the end of the summer). She has issues with anxiety that she was making some progress on until she just sat at home for some months, and also had a problem with self-motivation to actually watch online lectures and so on, so those things plus the fact that she goes to a small college in a remote location with very stringent COVID rules (if you choose to go to the McDonald’s near the school you must quarantine for multiple days, for instance) and lots of same-day COVID testing. The chancellor’s wife is an ICU doc who has treated nothing but COVID patients since March, so he’s not kidding around.
My guess, reading between the lines in my school district communications, is that they have always been fully aware that they need to make a solid plan for all-remote, but they focused their communication efforts on the hybrid and other options that parents were desperately hoping to hear about. And so when they finally announced that my district was going all-remote after all, they had already done a ton of work behind the scenes getting ready for that.
Also, we are all-remote now, but eventually (after a vaccine is available??) we will presumably start to transition back into the school buildings. When we do, some of the planning work, cleaning supplies, etc might be useful after all.
Spinning it all that way helps me stay calm, anyway.
My teenagers are going back BUT I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m letting them because they have mental health things going on that make it so I think in their cases, giving them control over this decision is the best option. (And I’m hoping they’re back home ASAP.) (And we are in an area with a VERY low case count, and a state that is taking this seriously; I would likely not be allowing it otherwise. My son’s college will be testing everyone every three days, and running their own lab to get results expediently.)
So if it helps you feel less crazy (you are NOT crazy!) keep in mind that some of your friends might be in the same situation as me, or feel they have no choice due to child care or special education needs, or other things that are not related to them living in some alternate reality where this seems actually safe.
I’ve had the same losing my mind thoughts. I chose virtual way back in April for my kid. I hope you and I are wrong (I would never be so happy to be wrong in my life), but I don’t see how we won’t have huge spikes and massive loss of life by going back to the before times. I comfort myself by hoping colleges will close at the first sign of spread (we’ve seen that already happening in some places), but of course not all will. In the future movies about 2020, all the viewers we be yelling “why didn’t they stay In if they were able to do so!?” And they will be right. I get that it is disappointing to have virtual college, but the alternative is certainly worse.
The way you describe it is EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING and we are just setting ourselves up for a disaster!!!!!
Anyway.
I’ve definitely gotten responses to my first email sent out to parents (we don’t start school, virtually, until Labor Day) that they are not just participating in online school for now but WITHDRAWING to homeschool or attend a fully-virtual school program for the whole year.
Because the virtual school thing was such a big political school board decision, there were a bunch of advocacy facebook groups for our county- the “we support the virtual only option” group I’m in definitely has a lot of parents planning to keep their kids online even when an in-person option begins. I wonder if there might be a group like that in your area that might be nice to read occasionally even if you don’t want to get involved in protests at the school board office or whatever? Or maybe it wasn’t such a big drama as it was here so those groups don’t exist.
I’ve heard the term ‘outernet’ tossed around jokingly, although I forget where.
You aren’t crazy. I literally quit my job and changed industries to be able to have my small children do distance learning (I got the job!!). I decided early to do virtual box matter what and this gifted me time to plan. A little after that our school pivoted to virtual only which means they are not scrambling as badly as the schools that are JUST NOW considering it despite our metro area being a hotspot. And the schools that are in our metro and are in person…I just…I canNOT.
Virtual no matter what*
Where did my phone come up with “box” ???
I keep seeing on social media old friends dropping their kids of at college in the Midwest and I’m pretty shocked by it. I’m in California and in person learning is not an option in my county. I don’t have kids but my husband teaches and I’m so glad going back isn’t even on the table at this point. I don’t know what we’ll do in the spring if they decide cases are low enough to resume in person learning. He also commutes an hour each way and we don’t miss that either.
My 3 kids have to stay home because our district is opening virtual only. I would have sent them in person. My 4th grader could have gone 5 days with the hybrid model and my 7th and 10th graders would have been going 2 days. We’re in Wisconsin.
Our district surveyed earlier in the summer and 40% of families said they would do online school. But then a survey went out where you had to make a final decision a few weeks ago. Only 10% of high school, 15% of middle school and 20% of elementary kids signed up for virtual, so the majority of families picked in-person. That ended up being one reason why they are not offering in-person, because they didn’t expect that many kids to be wanting to come in.
From what I’ve heard from friends most families picked in person. I know two families where one child will go in person and the other child will stay home. Due to not wanting to wear a mask in school and just preferring to stay home. I have one friend who picked virtual-only for her 3 kids and her husband is a teacher who preferred the virtual model, so that factored into their decision. I have a couple of local friends who have pulled out of the school system because it’s virtual and they are homeschooling instead because that will involve a once-a-week co-op in person.
I’m trying to get my youngest open enrolled into an actual online school, rather than our districts’s last minute virtual school. If/when they open in person I would like to put him back in school, but by pulling him out I am losing his spot, so he may not be able to get back in. My prediction is that they won’t be in school this calendar year, possibly the whole school year, so it doesn’t really matter then if I lose his spot.
The middle school where I work is going hybrid (alternating day schedule) and I am in charge of our fully virtual program. I’m not sure if you are the type of person calmed by statistics, but around 20% of our students have opted to be fully virtual. I wish you knew each other and this post is kind of inspiring me to make sure our virtual families can connect with one another so they don’t feel so alone.
Please do this! My kids have been doing distance learning for a week and a half. It’s going ok, but I’m discovering it’s really hard on the kids to not be able to have the little conversations they would normally have on the playground. My first grader is in the same class as her best friend from kindergarten (yay!) but is frustrated that she can’t even just wave at her when they’re on zoom (heartbreaking).
You are NOT ALONE, you are making the best choice for your family. And the world…? Your paragraph about the nationwide covid party is TRUTH. The next few months are going to be scary.
I will be homeschooling my kindergartener “and” her younger sister (age 2.5) (I’m not planning any curriculum for the little one, she’ll enjoy the same books and coloring etc). We’re so, so lucky in that I was already staying home with the kids, we have the space, it’s kindergarten so she doesn’t really know what she’s missing. I haven’t been in touch with any parents from her preschool, so I don’t know what they are doing this school year. Don’t want to know. I handle stress by keeping to myself (I’m an introvert! Hi! …don’t talk to me) so I’m very glad to be able to keep things in house right now.
We talk about virtual world and physical world to remove the implication that the virtual world is not real.
This whole thread is making me feel peaceful. Not an easy accomplishment these days. So many people with different views/approaches explaining the what and the why. No one yet doing the thing Swistle said specifically NOT TO DO.
It’s quite lovely. If it weren’t a giant discussion about the raging pandemic, well, one might forget about it for a bit.
We opted out of hybrid, chose all remote for the entire year and I could not be happier. It has eased such a mental burden and I don’t honestly know what we would have done if remote wasn’t an option. My 13 year old has anxiety issues and she is thrilled to be full remote. Does she miss her friends? Yes. But not having to worry about all the other teen stuff has made her such a happier version of herself. She’s enjoying school again for the first time in years. Her circle of friends are equally happy to be remote, but all of my friends only talk about how ready their kids are to be back in person. Absolutely not the case for us.
I managed to have a lot of friends with immune issues, I guess, because I feel as though most of mine are going virtual as long as they can. I do have one acquaintance who is seriously testing my goodwill by pointing out, repeatedly, that his kids have particular reasons for needing some F2F time. And that is true, but he is blasting past “How soon?” and “How much?” and sheesh, fella, we get it. But also, please remember: pandemic.
I am also pretty tired of people who insist that no college student anywhere, ever, could possibly be expected to follow the rules. That said, every time a school with serious party culture has students who break the rules for party time, I think (a) Duh, and (b)
We are homeschooling, something that would never appeal to me under normal circumstances. My district has two terrible options: online with teachers and online on your own. We are choosing to opt out of the chaos and do our own thing. Turns out many someone’s have already created online curriculums for the homeschool crowd rather than starting from scratch like our district is doing. I am confident that whatever we do will not be worse than the shitty situation our district is going to serve up. Besides, if school starts as normal in September Of 2021 there will be so many different levels of learning to contend with, our kids will fit right in. I’m actually pretty excited about it? Just having our own schedule. It must be said, that I am incredibly privileged to be able to make this choice because both my husband and I are working from home and we will figure out how to work homeschool into our lives. YOU ARE NOT CRAZY AND YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!
It’s like you live where I live! Yes! the hybrid option here was to go to school and DO SCHOOL ONLINE! Seriously, people, that is not an option.
I decided to homeschool so that I could be in charge. If we are all going to be at home together nonstop, then I want to be in charge of what gets done, what gets assigned, and even what days off we have.
I also feel incredibly privilege to make this choice. I think of the single working moms I know and I really feel for them. The choices available here are such garbage.
I say “offline” and “online”. “Offline” includes people I talk to in person / see in person and sometimes see online.
I wish I had any useful suggestions for the rest. I feel for you.
Our system (central Maryland) went fully virtual for the first semester. If all goes well, we’re back hybrid starting January 29th for the spring. I do not have any confidence that the kids will go back in during flu season, but we’ll see when we get there.
I’m so relieved and grateful that I didn’t have to make any choices. I probably would have wanted hybrid, my husband is stay-home-or-else, and the kids are also split. I’m glad that everyone’s focus and energy is just on one delivery system for now.
I also feel so lucky that my husband’s work is 100% remote for now so I don’t have to worry about leaving kids alone or one of us quitting our jobs. This whole thing, frankly, sucks.
My husband and I are both teachers, and our school is back to in-person, so we are there and so are our kids. But if I had the option to keep them home, I’d definitely take it.
You are playing it safe. Some people can’t do that, and other people are just bigger risk-takers, but there is NOTHING WRONG with wanting to play it safe during a PANDEMIC with an immunocompromised person in your family.
Oh, and while I can see the valid reasons to TRY to open school for 5th grade and under (childcare for the working parents who desperately need it, online learning is not very developmentally appropriate for these ages, kids under 10 are less likely to get or spread the virus), I really can’t see the justification for opening up COLLEGES in person rather than keeping them online. Like… WHY???
Oh Swistle. I don’t think you are crazy (although I fully understand the feeling), and I think you have made GOOD choices for your kids, and you are being very reasonable and thoughtful about everything.
It is all so hard. <3
We are choosing online because we feel it will be safer, less chaotic, and make space at the school for kids who don’t have another option. I find myself feeling jealous sometimes. Like will they throw the social distancing out the window and have a grand old time at school while my lonely daughter is at home doing crap virtual school? A thing I’m upset about which I may vocalize are some point is that virtual school goes nine to four just like in person school. I can’t imagine they need all that time for the virtual kids. I suspect they are just doing it to get people calling for their property taxes back to be quiet, and that bugs me.
We chose virtual for our son. His district is offering fulky face to face or fully virtual.
I so appreciate this place where fellow “feeling crazy” people can compare notes.
Our district will be starting online and reassessing at the end of every month. I do feel relieved not to make a choice but also dread knowing that at the end of every month the decision will be revisited.
Not sure about anyone else, but with back to school traditions so muted and uncertain, I’m feeling more strange and disconnected than ever…the same disbelief and denial feelings from March-April. The 7 Stages of Grief keeps coming to mind.
In my son’s little class of 21 students I have heard of 4 parents choosing to keep their kids home. And that is knowing only about 14 of the families. I like knowing numbers. Obviously we are fortunate to have such a small class size (and small school in general). Because of that and low community transmission we are sending him to school. For me it is also about mental health as I was a horrible online teaching parent. I simply do not have the patience required. That being said I absolutely do not deride other choices families are making. And I am super certain we will still be home a lot anyways, as cases pop up and flu season hits.
Totally agree with whoever was saying it will be tough when winter hits and the amount of outdoor activities possible dwindles.
I do feel like I HAVE lost my mind, because there is literally no coherent logical strategy in our country. And yes, I am completely convinced that the only plan we have is to basically let everyone get sick, and if people die they die, and then everyone else will just… move on. That everyone will get sick and a lot of people will die and even more will permanently damage themselves is just seen as an acceptable outcome to a lot of people. Including most of our damn leaders.
It is effing bananas.
“It is what it is.”
—Our fearless leader
I feel like throwing up.
We’ve chosen remote learning for my second grader and pulled my pre-k kid out and we had the option of going in person for both. It sounds pretty divided where I live in terms of what people are choosing (Chicago suburbs). I am so sorry you don’t have any in person that is making the same choices you are. How infuriating! You are making the safer choice for your family and the smarter choice for your community. Anecdotally, I have a co-worker whose son is a freshman at University of Alabama this year. They did not offer a remote learning option so he went in person. He got COVID one week after arriving. And he’s still there with lots of other sick people. Going in person if you have an alternative is foolish. Good luck!
Our district offered hybrid model half days, or all virtual. I chose the all virtual. We are the only ones I know out of all our friends who are doing so (although according to the town FB page it looks closer to about 25% of families are choosing to stay home). I agree wholeheartedly with every single thing you said.
I live in Georgia and our dear state is FULL of the conspiracy theorists, as is our school…
We are enrolled in a pricey private school, and we cannot get out of our contract to pay them for the 3 children’s education- otherwise we would definitely just homeschool this year and hopefully be able to catch up next year. So our other option is to send in person (no hybrid, just all the kids, spaced out) or online. So we are doing online. One week it and it’s NOT smooth. Poor teachers. We are by far in the minority. But at least we’re helping the school figure out the online stuff so that when we eventually have to close it’ll be smoother!
Here’s what’s happening in our state: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article245166395.html
So UNC Chapel Hill, full of Smart McSmarties, has multpile clusters of cases and had to shut down after one week of in-person school. You’re not crazy. I’m grateful that our school district decided to at least do the first nine weeks remotely. My best friend, who is a teacher in our district, says he believes they’ll be online all year.
In my portion of the country (Alabama) we were originally given the option of virtual or in person. About half of my friend group chose virtual. I have asthma and am prone to pneumonia, so we opted virtual, figuring that as a SAHM I can help my kids virtually while leaving space in person for kids whose parents do not have that choice. Well, 3 weeks before school was set to start all 3 school districts in my county decided to do virtual-only for the first 9 weeks, with an evaluation after Labor Day to see how things are going. Cases are dropping in my county due to a mask ordinance, but surrounding counties (residents of those counties work in my county) went back to school for a week then started shutting down again due to an explosion of cases. I have 3 kids in 3 different public schools, one of whom is in virtual PreK and it is a lot. I think if they open our schools I will have to pull my PreK kid…there’s no way 4yos can separate. Alabama is…not great about making smart choices. The teachers have worked so hard and my kids are getting their work done fast so virtual is working well for us, but the unknown is terrifying.
I live in a university town with the states largest public university. My son is a senior there. I work there. I have been working remotely since the middle of March and will be at least until the new year, probably longer. The local school district is all virtual. The university is offering hybrid options. Luckily, all of my sons classes are offered online. He was prepared to change classes to get all online. He has serious anxiety issues and has been extremely careful during this whole thing. He probably drives his roommates bananas, but they are all doing the same thing. I see such irony in the fact that all employees who can work from home are working from home, but the students are expected to show up. Dorms are filling up this week. How many weeks until they are sent home? It makes no sense to me, but I think it’s all about dollars and cents. They actually raised tuition this fall and are charging all students a fee for a coronavirus safety kit (face masks, hand sanitizer, and wipes).
I haven’t read through all the comments (yet), but from your post I thought you should know what our district is up to: K-5 is full-time in-person, upper grades are hybrid/AB rotation. But! They also added a virtual option. They originally planned on 200-300 students opting for the virtual academy, but it’s closer to 1,000 right now. Lots of people here feel the way you do! One nice thing is that this has dropped the number of kids per classroom significantly, so those who cannot have one parent home while the other works (or what-have-you) can at least feel a bit better about the necessity of sending their kids back to school in person while they try to eek out a living in this crumbling, no-safety-net economy. It’s not awesome, but I feel like our area is doing what they can to minimize risk and are supporting the school to provide in-person to those who need it and other options for those who can do other things. The point I’m trying to make is that there are lots of families here who are making the same decisions as you are. It’s hard to not feel alone, but I assure you that you are not! Maybe we’re all losing our minds together, but at least we aren’t alone! ;)
Yeah, so here the number of teachers being moved to teach virtually is in direct proportion to the number of students that well be learning virtually. This means that, for example, if there would normally be 4 classes of 25 with a teacher each (4 teachers in total), but a quarter of the students opt for virtual, that means a teacher would have to move online to teach those virtual students. This would result in 3 in-person classes of 25 with 3 teachers to teach them, and one empty classroom. The classes in person can’t be smaller because there aren’t any teachers to teach a fourth class, allowing the 75 students to spread out more.
The on line community is a constant sanity saver here ♥️
I’m in the UK in an area with zero cases currently and a partner who can wfh so my set up is very different to many, I appreciate that. I’ve done all the education and house stuff for the past six months, we have made the choice to send ours back to school… But hear me out. My main motivation for this was because it’s a brand new school for them, their previous one was shut because of covid and won’t ever open, this new one is in a different area, and we know no-one. We made the choice to send them in September, when lots of parents aren’t back to office ect and risks are lower, ( the school is also less than 50 pupils) so they can meet the teachers and the other students so when it inevitably ( in my less optimistic eyes) moves back to online they will actually know the teachers and other pupils in some way and it isn’t actual strangers. Because our previous school shut mid March they haven’t had any online learning at all , I did my best but I think we’d all benefit from some guidance. All that said if our very specific set up wasn’t the case I’d not be sending them back, even in a low case area in the UK. Mine are littler kids too, and I’ll be working in a nursery 🤪 my own children can be kept home or whatever if we bail with my husband ,see how that works out… Should we need or want to, I’m here for hand holding and agreement with you.
Oh and from what I can tell right now our choices in the UK are go to school or de register. There isn’t a mid ground yet… Which perhaps is forcing people’s hands more.
I refer to everyone as “my friend said ” to my husband when ever anything I enjoyed/hate/learned from comes up and now he must think I have about a million friends…. I never really differentiate in person or online.
So this is a subject I feel so much anxiety speaking about for a few reasons. My children are fifth, fifth and second grade. I work full time in healthcare, making a substantial amount of money towards our household income and carry our family’s health insurance because my husband is self employed. I live in a conservative southern state where it’s common to see people of all ages and backgrounds without masks in public places in which there are signs posted stating masks are required. Our school system has virtual option or in person option and my kids went back in person a week ago. Every day I think “this is the day I’ll get the call” that schools are closing and I worry about it constantly. Because then what do I do? Quit my job? Lose our benefits? Hire a babysitter to homeschool my kids? I get all of the reasons to do virtual teaching, I DO. But it’s just not feasible for a lot of families. (Obviously older children in high school and college is a different circumstance). My siblings all live out west in more liberal states and they are all stay at home parents in one capacity or another and I was just today part of a very judgy group text about how dare “people” (me) send their kids back to school during a pandemic and risk the health of their family and community, etc. But it’s not that simple is it? My husband and I are fortunate that we COULD GET BY on one income for a few months but what about those families that aren’t that fortunate? I just don’t know, we are really stuck between a rock and a hard place. And I know I’m not the only one in this boat. So what’s the answer? I’m really asking, I have no idea.
**all of this is said with love and respect and I love you’re writing a lot**
What happens with K-12 schools should really, really be driven by local transmission rates. Florida & Georgia having in person school seems nuts. New York, especially NYC, has less than 1% positive cases and they had a big outbreak previously. With safeguards, they are in a very good position to have school in person. NYC deciding NOT to have in person school, especially with all the kids and families who need it, does not seem rational to me.
Every state and every metro area will have a different calculus. I don’t think every in person school attempt is doomed. I think many attempts in high transmission areas are unwise, but that is not everywhere.
In person college, however, seems an entirely different question and may well be doomed.
I live in New Zealand. We have 129 active cases in the whole country, all linked to one cluster or people who have recently returned from overseas. It has been controlled by extensive testing and strict lockdowns. We’ve had 22 people die the whole pandemic. I’m saying all this because people here are still nervous to send their kids to school. You are not irrational, you are very very rational. I imagine that some people have now just been exposed to it for such a long time that their normal meter is way off.
I am in Canada, and our options in my city in my school board are: online for all levels vs in-person full-size classes or K-8, or a hybrid of 50% of days in school with capped classes (max 15 students), 50% of days independent online for high schools. As well, the high schoolers will only be studying 2 subjects at a time, so they will only be in 2 classes on the days they’re there, and they’ll be dismissed earlier than usual. All grades have to wear masks all day unless they’re eating.
My son is going into grade 7, and we’ve opted for fully-remote learning for him. Classes of up to 30 kids was too crowded for comfort, even with masks. My daughter is going into grade 9 and with half-size classes and only half the days we’ve agreed that distancing and masks should be enough for us to give her a chance to go to school. This is based on our comfort level with risk, given our family’s circumstances. And in our case, the risk seems statistically not bad: in a city of a million people, we currently have only 156 active cases, including the 24 new ones reported yesterday. There is no way there will be zero transmission at schools, the question is really how manageable the transmission will be.
Over a quarter of elementary kids here have opted for remote, and over a fifth of high schoolers have as well, by the way.
I have found the families in my family’s school community who are choosing remote (we’re all remote now, but choosing it when we thought hybrid was an option) are much, much quieter about this choice than the families having sleep overs and looking forward to the first moment their family members can share indoor air with others. It is disconcerting and I’m just hoping as many of us as possible get through the year without a death in our communities.
My oldest graduated high school this year and was supposed to attend college out of state. We waffled back and forth on “letting” her attend and ultimately the college chose to go fully virtual this year. We opted to defer rather than pay out of state tuition for virtual learning but I feel very lonely as the parents/kids around us send their kids off to college. My daughter hasn’t expressed any direct sadness as she watches her friends start to leave but it has to be lonely for her too. It just feels so weird to watch my peers wave their kids off to Florida and other hot spots like nothing is different and it feels weird to have to explain that she won’t be attending this year. My other kids are supposed to start back with our hybrid model because both adults in the house work full time and online learning was so horrible for us through the spring but we *hate* feeling like we’ve been cornered into an unsafe choice. I feel all of what you wrote, simultaneously so lonely and yet never ever alone!
I’m in Houston, and pretty much all schools around here are online-only for the moment. The school I teach at, and many others, are offering an online-only option for the full semester, even when we are back in person. The original plan was to be back in person, on a hybrid schedule (so half the kids are in school and half are Zooming in from home) by Labor Day, but I doubt that’ll happen.
I know distance learning is hard for younger kids, but I am LOVING that we have this option for high schoolers, and certainly hope my administration doesn’t rush to put us back on campus soon. I am not ready for that exposure, and I hope I’m not forced to be prematurely ready. (I will note that my baby is in daycare, because though we are home my husband and I are both teaching classes all day and it’s just impossible to meet the needs of a baby too. But her daycare is very small and taking lots of precautions and so far there hasn’t been a case! So that is heartening, but does not make me crave MORE exposure to other people.)
Okay, I RAN to the comment section (like if this was a thing that was happening in real life I’d have sprinted like Usain Bolt) because everyone I know here (Pac NW) with college students has elected for their kids to go fully online even when hybrid or in-person was an option except one person. In fact, it was their kids who all made the decision to stay on-line because they were worried about getting sick or worried they will go to all of the hassle of moving only to have to come home in a couple of weeks AND get exposed to COVID. You are not crazy. Or maybe I’m also nuts, but all of the evidence and science strongly indicates that colleges cannot pull this off and it’s utter nonsense to try it.
Relatedly, I was so relieved when our governor issued revised mandates that basically assured that none of the kids here in K-12 could go back to school in person unless/until we get out numbers down (and they are not that high relatively speaking) because I was preparing myself to be the “bad guy” who told my kids that even if their schools were going hybrid I could not get comfortable with the idea and it was going to suck.
I am not interested in playing games with COVID or pretending like it’s not serious or that we’ve done enough to get it under control or keep it there. IMO these school openings are going to be a slow rolling disaster and it’s unconscionable for schools to pretend otherwise.
Hear hear! Maggie, I am suddenly, somehow GALVANIZED by your “…not interested in playing games…” comment, thank you!
Reading your comment occurred on the tail of having a dreadful, cannot-wake-up-until-it’s-finished dream last night in which I was stuck in a setting with dozens and dozens of people, shoulder to shoulder, and NO ONE was masked!
*takes deep cleansing breath*
Ahhh, that’s better.
This is all a bit weird to me because people keep pointing to the economics: the economics of schools needing student numbers so they’re given enough money; the economics of colleges needing dorm/on-campus class payments; the economics of individuals who don’t have an option where “pay the bills via work” and “supervise virtual learning” are compatible.
The US is not resource-poor. This is *bonkers* that we are collectively choosing to have extra people die because of bad funding/financial/economic models. (I mean: public schools need more money than they get *normally* and even more so in a pandemic?)
This reminds me of the Capitalism Cookie illustration: a rich person, a middle class person, and a poor person in the US make a batch of a dozen cookies. The rich person shuffles away 11 of the cookies for private consumption, puts one cookie between the middle class person and the poor person, and then says to each “*they’re* trying to take *your* cookie.”
I’m not all “total wealth redistribution!” or “we can solve all problems with money!” but: the ultra-rich should be paying more taxes, corporations should not be profiting to the ultimate extent possible off underpaid labor, and we need to be thinking differently about a lot of the things that are “inevitable” about our situation in the US, because a lot of this *does not have to be this way* and *should not be this way* and yet those who are profiting off it being this way are managing to pretend it’s just natural/inevitable and getting people to be mad at *them* because they’re trying to take *your cookie.*
(that said: we don’t have that economic model right now; these are the current constraints that we’re working with and which need to be reformed but need to be worked around until then. And people whose kids basically need Peer Face Time for mental health: that’s a separate issue, and *also* one I think we could benefit from looking sideways at; like: can five people maybe host virtual school for five kids, one each day a week, so that you’re only mixing 5 households’ germs instead of [number of households represented by your local school] households’ germs? Maybe not! But. Maybe?)
In related news: my school district keeps asking about access to technology VIA technology. By no other means I can discern. Someone today: if a parent isn’t getting the surveys, theY should contact the school.
How does one know they didn’t get a survey they don’t know exists?
Y’all are educators. If you call someone, they likely have a phone. But if they do not have a phone, they’re not on the phone tree.
Oh this was one of my pet peeves with school communications even before COVID when there was at least a chance that someone without access to technology might hear about the survey or what have you around school or a flyer would be put in the child’s cubby to take home. But now! How on earth are they to find out about questions about access to tech that are posed only through tech? It’s like some version of who’s on first only with horrible, possibly life-altering consequences. It’s like they become completely invisible and then get lost entirely and it’s heartbreaking.
I work in the community outreach unit at our county health agency. We are voicing concern (and providing guidance) to the school board about schoolchildren who are at risk during normal times, who are now especially at risk because they are not able to attend school in person (our district is online only), and may not have access to technology at home, may not have adequate support at home, etc. It is a very troubling aspect of remote learning.
Right there with you! Did the questioning my sanity thing but then my husband reminded me of facts. We also don’t know more than a couple of hold outs, but I think the fall and winter are not going to be good. We live in NJ just across the bridge from Manhattan 😬
YES!! We have an in-person option, but we are doing the 100% virtual. Because that is 4 fewer people’s germs to avoid at school. I know that a lot of people have no other options for what to do with their kids, but what have they been doing since March?
And while my dander is up, SERIOUSLY, MY COMMUNITY: WHY do you not all cover your noses, too? My 6 year old knows better.
My kids are 3 and 6, which seems to make a difference in how efficient they are at transmitting and/or contracting the virus, but we were not planning to send them in-person (they are both enrolled at our neighborhood public school).
Their principal mentioned that I could enroll them as “in-person/hybrid,” stay in the school loop, keep funding allocated to the school, and not worry too much about attendance. Then our district announced that everyone would be remote until at least 10/16, which I thought solved our problem, since then the kids would be “enrolled” at their school, but staying home, through Count Day, which is the day enrollment-based funding is allocated.
BUT now they’re planning to open the building up for ECE (Preschool) in-person. It has been nearly impossible to entertain my 3 year old while his brother does school on a COMPUTER with a teacher and other kids. He’s a mess and it’s now to the point that I’m considering letting him do his 2.5 hour program when I never thought I would.
I applaud your choices though! If I had older kids, I *think* I’d be doing the same as you.
Thank you for this! I have googled 10 different ways to try and find something about the small percentage of us parents who had a choice and choose all distance learning. I literally also know no other family making this same choice and it is so sad and isolating to be on the outside of every back to school conversation and to feel like we are “bringing down the room” simply by stating our choice without even sharing all of our reasons. It’s complex. A lot of families are backed into a corner and have no other choices. I’m judging leaders decision making but not my friends and neighbors who feel trapped. I am angry about the lack of child care options and the weight of all of this being mainly in the shoulders of women. I am super privileged to be able to stay home with my kids (though we are taking a financial hit and my career is being stalled) and therefore felt it was even more important to care for my community, reduce the numbers of kids in schools and give those teachers who can’t go back at least an option to teach kids virtually. It is NOT what is best for my kids. They need to be back in school just like every other kid for their mental health. My shy kindergartener is going to struggle to be engaged. But we have lots of resources to support our kids long term and there are plenty of families who don’t. I’ve mostly been pondering how this entire conversation is centered around “making the best choice for our family“. Why isn’t “and community” at the end of that sentence? We don’t live in a bubble and the negative affects on others will have a ripple affect on all of us. If someone in my position doesn’t choose this, who will? Anyone else listen to Nice White Parents? I feel like there are a lot of interesting connections between what families are choosing now around the pandemic. It does all make me feel crazy and alone.